Hearing Focuses on Camera Recording
Plays Key Role in City Homicide Proceeding

The star witness in a homicide hearing Friday was a security camera recording.
A brief but deadly encounter between two young men last August on Marietta Avenue was captured by a Lancaster Community Safety Coalition camera and shown in a court proceeding Friday.

On the small screen of a laptop computer, one young man, identified by prosecutors as Chrishon Johnson-Gray, 20, of Lancaster, is mortally wounded and staggers down the street.

And his alleged assailant, who prosecutors identified as Sequoyah Native Hawkins (pictured left), is seen on the recording running down the street in the opposite direction.

After a brief preliminary hearing Friday afternoon during which District Judge Bruce Roth watched the color recording on the laptop computer, Hawkins was ordered to stand trial on a charge of criminal homicide.

First Assistant District Attorney Christopher Larsen set up the computer on the judge's bench, showing the recording of the encounter to Roth as defense attorney Fred Harrison stood close by and watched.
As cars pass a coin-operated laundry on Marietta Avenue, in the area of Coral and West Orange streets, a small group of men and one woman can be seen walking back and forth.

In a matter of seconds, the man identified by prosecutors as Hawkins can be seen grabbing Johnson-Gray, Larsen said, and quickly assaulting him.

Johnson-Gray staggers away, bumping into parked cars, as the man identified as Hawkins runs away.
In addition to the video, a person who tried to help Johnson-Gray after he was injured testified Friday.
As he applied pressure to Johnson-Gray's bleeding neck, the man testified, the victim asked him to "tell his mother that he loved her."

Prosecutors asked that the man, dressed in orange prison garb like Hawkins, not be identified for security reasons.

The young man said he did not see the fatal altercation on the afternoon of Aug. 24 and only ran to help when he heard yelling and saw Johnson-Gray collapse in the 600 block of Marietta Avenue.

Lancaster city police detectives said the stabbing was the result of a dispute between the two young men and was not a random act.

Hawkins, whom police said was staying in Lancaster last summer, was arrested in November in Upper Darby. He is being held in Lancaster County Prison without bail.

Prosecutors said it was the second time a Safety Coalition camera was helpful in a homicide investigation.

Ironically, the first time was in March 2007 when Abdulmumin Walton was arrested for killing Tyquan Hall and wounding two of his companions, one of whom was Johnson-Gray.

The victims were standing together in the 300 block of South Prince Street when Walton began shooting at the group.

Police were able to identify the suspect from the Safety Coalition video.

Courtesy of Lancaster Newspapers, Intelligencer Journal / Lancaster New Era
January 22, 2010

E-mail Janet Kelley: jkelley@lnpnews.com

Read more results from 2010 >>